Last year, Yangphel organized its biggest national archery tournament ever: 900 archers from all over Bhutan made150 teams and played a total of 180 matches over almost two months. The tournament commemorated a hundred years of monarchy and celebrated the coronation of our fifth Druk Gyalpo. Yesterday, Yangphel organized its annual internal archery tournament: 30 [...]
For over a decade now, every time I’ve fueled up in Phuentsholing, I’ve asked the petrol pump cashier to exchange various amounts of Ngultrums for Indian Rupees. I’ve had little problems changing small amounts, like Nu 500. But for larger amounts, say Nu 5000, it would sometimes get difficult to change my money. I’ve rarely [...]
I am delighted that the agriculture minister is traveling to our dzongkhags to discuss the 10th Plan and to identify viable products that our villagers can make (read Taking the 10th plan to the people). If villagers and local leaders are fully involved in the process and genuinely accept his idea, our agriculture minister could [...]
Here’s some good news from the RMA: our GDP, which is about Nu 59 billion, grew by 21.4% in 2007 and increased per capita GDP to US$ 1900. Not bad. We now have the highest GDP per person in South Asia. But what does this mean? Do you contribute your share to the GDP? If [...]
I’m humbled by the quality of the responses to my last entry – they are insightful, meaningful and educative. And every one of them shows deep concern over how difficult it is to do business in our country. But your responses scared me. I suddenly realized that Doing Business ranking for Bhutan may be terribly [...]
Everywhere I look I see people, thousands of them, buying and selling goods and services. It must be easy to do business in Thailand. In fact it is: Doing Business 2009 ranks Thailand 13th out of the 181 economies that the World Bank studied. Doing Business investigates government regulations that affect the following 10 aspects [...]
20th August 1987. It was getting dark. I’d reached my university in Pittsburgh earlier that day. I fought to control my jetlag and hide my culture shock. I was tired and hungry. So I made my way to a MacDonald’s and timidly requested for the set meal that offered a cheese burger, fries and coke. [...]
It happened again. Druknet was down this morning. It was down yesterday too. And I was frustrated – I couldn’t check my emails, or update this blog, or confirm my Druk Air reservations. But many others must have been even more frustrated. The sudden loss of connectivity with the rest of the world would have [...]
But it’s getting even harder in Bhutan! In “Really hard business” (read blog entry) I had grumbled that doing business in our country was really hard – the World Bank had ranked Bhutan 119th of the 178 countries it had evaluated on ease of doing business in 2008. Guess what? Doing business in Bhutan has [...]
We may have lost the elections. But I still read our manifesto every now and then. It reminds me of our promises. Reminds me to serve with humility. And to walk the talk. The following article is a “box” from our manifesto. Enjoy. Doing business isn’t easy anywhere But, it’s really hard in Bhutan! The [...]
Tshering Tobgay is a Member of Parliament representing Sombaykha Constitutency in Haa. He is the Leader of the Opposition Party in the National Assembly of Bhutan.
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